The present invention relates to music playback systems and, more particularly, to a music controller that selects music based on one or more listeners.
Carrying and storing multiple music compact discs (CDs), digital versatile discs (DVDs), and/or cassette tapes is tedious, especially for listeners having a large music collection. By using a music encoding algorithm to encode music in an encoded audio format, such as Windows Media Audio (WMA) or MPEG Layer 3 (MP3), listeners can store music, in encoded form, on a computer or a portable music player. Once the music has been encoded into the particular audio format (or downloaded in the encoded audio format from a music server or other source), the listener is no longer required to carry or keep track of multiple CDs, DVDs, and/or cassette tapes.
Existing systems for playing encoded music assume that one person is listening to the music (e.g., the owner of the computer or portable music player). These existing systems allow the listener to create playlists; i.e., listings of songs to be played in a particular sequence. However, these existing systems do not allow a listener to rate different songs or albums. Furthermore, these existing systems are not capable of selecting music that is acceptable to two or more listeners. As mentioned above, these existing systems assume that a single listener is using the system and, therefore, do not contemplate groups of simultaneous listeners.
The system described herein addresses these and other problems by providing a music controller that selects music based on the preferences of the current listening group.
The system and methods described herein schedule and play music based on the music preferences and/or ratings of one or more listeners. Music is selected that is favorable to all current listeners. Virtual radio stations allow the choice of music selections based on the different combinations of listeners and/or different music styles desired.
A particular embodiment selects a music library containing multiple music albums, in which each music album contains multiple songs. This embodiment also identifies listener preferences associated with a first listener and identifies listener preferences associated with a second listener. A music schedule is generated that contains multiple songs acceptable to the first listener and the second listener.
In one embodiment, a music controller plays songs from the music schedule.
In another embodiment, the listener preferences include ratings of music albums contained in the music library.
In other embodiments, the listener preferences include ratings of songs contained in the music library.
In a particular embodiment, the music schedule is generated such that songs with a higher ranking are played more frequently than songs with a lower ranking.